If you've been using WordPress for a while, it's likely that you feel pretty confident in the day-to-day operation of your site.
In this post, you will get to know every information to become a “WordPress Expert” and we will discuss some steps to help you achieve that status.
We have to note that when we talk about WordPress “experts,” we're using the term somewhat lightly. WordPress is very broad platform. Noone can become an expert on every aspect of the entire Content Management System (CMS).
However, you acquire extensive WordPress knowledge. This is what the purposes of this article, we'll define an expert as someone who is well-versed in WordPress usage, can build a high-quality WordPress site, stays on top of Wordpress-related updates and news, and actively participates in the community.
So, let's get to it!
In this post, you will get to know every information to become a “WordPress Expert” and we will discuss some steps to help you achieve that status.
We have to note that when we talk about WordPress “experts,” we're using the term somewhat lightly. WordPress is very broad platform. Noone can become an expert on every aspect of the entire Content Management System (CMS).
However, you acquire extensive WordPress knowledge. This is what the purposes of this article, we'll define an expert as someone who is well-versed in WordPress usage, can build a high-quality WordPress site, stays on top of Wordpress-related updates and news, and actively participates in the community.
So, let's get to it!
Steps to Become a WordPress ExpertHere are some steps that can help you get plugged into the WordPress community. We’ll recommend some learning resources at the end as well.
Step 1: Use Your Current Knowledge and Note Any GapsEven if you are pretty good in how to use WordPress, you probably know that you have some gaps in your skillset.
A easy and fast way to assess your current knowledge rather than comparing to where you want to be, is to consider what are those WordPress work which you are currently paying to someone else to handle for you. Do you outsource work like design, development, SEO, maintenance, or speed optimization?
Learning how to take care of those tasks yourself will definitely help you become a more independent user.
Alternatively – because it's hard to know what you don't know – you can check out an online WordPress course and see if there are any lessons on unfamiliar topics. Here’s a screenshot of a typical online basic WordPress course.
Once you've determined what you still need to know and what you already know, you'll have a better idea of what type of learning you have to look for.
Step 1: Use Your Current Knowledge and Note Any GapsEven if you are pretty good in how to use WordPress, you probably know that you have some gaps in your skillset.
A easy and fast way to assess your current knowledge rather than comparing to where you want to be, is to consider what are those WordPress work which you are currently paying to someone else to handle for you. Do you outsource work like design, development, SEO, maintenance, or speed optimization?
Learning how to take care of those tasks yourself will definitely help you become a more independent user.
Alternatively – because it's hard to know what you don't know – you can check out an online WordPress course and see if there are any lessons on unfamiliar topics. Here’s a screenshot of a typical online basic WordPress course.
Once you've determined what you still need to know and what you already know, you'll have a better idea of what type of learning you have to look for.
Step 2: Ensure That You Understand How The WordPress' Key Components Work TogetherThere are a various parts that make up WordPress, but there are three key components which is WordPress core, your theme, and various plugins. When you will have a basic understanding of each component, there's much more you can learn.
WORDPRESS CORE
For beginers, “WordPress core” refers to the WordPress core files. You should be familiar with the main core files and what can you do with each of them. You should also know which you can edit safely and which ones you should never touch.
Another part of WordPress mastery is to understand the built-in and custom post types and their associated template files.
When you fully understand the concept of custom post types, you can create your own, and the content in your websites will really start to stand out. You can create a custom post type for nearly any types of content you want to display on your site.
For example, you could have a special page listing bikes for sale, which links to each individual bikes, which is authored as a custom post in the back end. You could have a part of your site for recipes, or events, or movie reviews, all with their own unique features.
There are custom post type plugins that can help you to create custom post types, and when your skills will be improved enough, you can learn how to code them on your own.
The Beaver Builder plugin works with custom post types, so not only you can have custom posts describing bikes, you can also have beautiful layouts of the information. Or, you can build Beaver Themer layouts for the pages that describe the bikes and bikes categories.
WORDPRESS THEMES
Themes control layouts and style should be in parts of the page outside the content area, such as headers and footers. Many themes also offer a very limited choice of page templates and already have some settings for default styles. Because the use of a theme is mandatory in WordPress, it's good to stay updated with what are the most popular free and premium WordPress themes and what makes eachone of them unique. You should also make sure that the theme of your own site stays updated with WordPress core updates.
It’s also very important to understand the concept of the WordPress theme framework and the difference between parent and child themes.
Once you start to know the more technical aspects of themes, you’ll be able to make a better decision about whether you prefer a bare bones theme that you can further customize or one that can builds in a multitude of options. As your skills will improve further, you’ll be able to review themes for their coding quality and performance.
Even if you’re interested in using the Beaver Themer add-on plugin to design areas of the page normally controlled by the theme, if you understand what a theme can do then you’ll have a better understanding of how and where to override it with a Themer layout.
WORDPRESS PLUGINS
Whereas themes control layouts and styles, WordPress plugins control functionality, and there’s a plugin for almost every type of functionality: from page builders to specific content design elements (sliders, galleries, forms) to security, performance, backup, and analytics tools. It's important to be familiar with staples such as Yoast SEO, Jetpack, and WooCommerce.
Many free plugins are there to choose, and even more premium plugins with advanced functionality are also there. With many plugins, particularly those which can help with content organization and design, you’ll notice that they are incorporate custom post types.
For example, the WooCommerce plugin installs a Products menu item into the WordPress admin panel, and from there you can click the Product button to create a custom post for each individual product.
As you start to learn code, if you creates multiple sites and will find yourself adding the same custom code to the functions.php file for most of your sites to create the same custom functionality, it’s not hard to turn that into your own custom plugin.
Step 3: Have a Strong Command on the Customizer and Other WordPress SettingsAnyone can pick up WordPress and use templates, themes, demos, and other prebuilt elements to create websites. However, WordPress experts are also capable of taking thier websites to the next level through advanced customization.
There are many ways to go for creating a custom WordPress site, including the use of plugins or custom code. It's important to start with a thorough knowledge of WordPress' native customization capabilities.
So, before you will call yourself a WordPress expert, you'll need to understand how to use the Customizer and WordPress' primary settings.
Although the Customizer settings for each theme are different, you have to quickly adjust the settings of the theme while you’re working to create a unique-looking site that meets end users' needs.
Here’s an example of the Customizer settings of the Twenty Seventeen theme.
You should also be able to use standard WordPress settings to add certain structures and features to a site. Just to name a few basics, you should know how to:
Step 4: You Should Learn About the Technical Underpinnings of WordPressA key part of knowing WordPress and its themes and plugins deeply is know how they were created, which means learning little about how to code. Now we're not saying you need to have advanced expertise in multiple coding languages in order to be a WordPress expert.
On the contrary, You can be an expert on WordPress without being able to do much more than a little tinkering.
By design, WordPress doesn't require coding knowledge, but knowing the basics of the languages that make up the foundation of the WordPress platform will help you with troubleshooting, fielding questions from other users, and for advanced customization.
This means knowing the basics of how to use HTML, CSS, PHP, and JavaScript in WordPress.
Step 5: Learn about the Data base and Database MaintenanceOne of the most intresting features of WordPress is that it’s a content management system (CMS) with a database, which means that pages are dynamically converted to HTML and served with content from the database.
It is very useful to learn how data related to posts and custom posts is stored in the database, so you can troubleshoot it if you will get yourself into any issue. Themes and plugins store their data in the database with their own unique prefixes, and it’s helpful to recognize that too, for troubleshooting.
One of the many benefits of this structure is that you can create custom fields in the database, which you can integrate with standard posts and custom post types.
Going back to the example of a custom post type for bikes, when authors are filling out the post with bike details, you could include custom fields for all the information that you want to show with every bike, such as year, model number, condition, and so on, which you can then display in a uniform way on the page.
Beaver Themer can connect to WordPress custom fields, Advanced Custom Fields, and Pods custom fields so you can easily include custom fields into your Beaver Builder layouts.
Here’s a screenshot showing one event from a custom post type called Events. The single event pages use a Beaver Themer Singular layout. The date, time, and the entire Special Notes sidebar contain various custom fields so that all of the event pages have similar information in a standardized location.
In this example, the CPT and the custom fields were all created by the Pods plugin, and the custom field connections were made available through the Pods integration with Beaver Builder.
Basically you won’t interact directly with the database unless you’re troubleshooting, but there are a few basic maintenance tasks WordPress experts should handle. For example, you should know the how to use phpMyAdmin and the database in manually installing WordPress:
You should also know how to maintain basic database to optimize site performance, or at least you should know how the database can affect execution so you can use a plugin to manage this piece of work.
Step 6: Be Familiar With WordPress' Hosting OptionsHosting is a important part of what is going on behind the scenes to keep a site running. You should know about the following aspects of hosting:
Step 7: Interact with the WordPress Community and Give Back
One of the many things that makes WordPress different from other platforms is that it’s open-source, meaning the source code is visible to anyone. Due to this, many WordPress experts have the chance to directly contribute in building the platform.
The next step to be an expert is to join the efforts to improve and expand the platform. If you happen to have extensive coding knowledge and experience, this can help for contributing to WordPress core development.
However, as we said earlier, you don't have to be a coding expert to be a WordPress expert. Once you’ve mastered the basics, you can innovate by your thoughts and ideas in various ways.
Make WordPress Core is probably the best place to get start. There you add comments to posts, report bugs, or even work on addressing support tickets:
If this doesn't feel like your strong suit, there are plenty of other options. You can also do:
Another responsibility that comes with being a WordPress expert is share your knowledge with begginer users. The Support Forums are full of people looking for help with specific problem, and they rely on generous experts to post replies to help them out:
Additionally, creating blog posts, video tutorials, or even a podcast on WordPress-related topics can help to support new users. Just think how much you can learn from WordPress-related blogs and tutorials contributed by volunteers.
They said that, you don't necessarily have to create your own blog or an entire YouTube channel to share your knowledge. You can always become a contributor at a larger WordPress blog or even write guest posts.
If writing and video editing aren't really cup of tea for you, maybe you'd rather submit an application to contact at a WordCamp or a WordPress meetup. They have many opportunities to use your knowledge and to share your expertise if you know where to look.
ConclusionA basic understanding WordPress and how it works is all you really need to make things run smoothly on your site. However, if you want to use more advanced features and to reduce your need for outside help, you'll need to advance your skills and to become a WordPress expert. The time you spend in learning will be paid back in time and frustration you save when you solve a problem or implement some advanced features on your site.
In this post, we explored seven steps you can take to start becoming a WordPress expert:
Its entry-level development courses should teach you enough to accomplish basic tasks. You can also learn from reading blog posts, although this brings with it a degree of trial and error.
The WordPress Codex is also an excellent resource where you can start reading up on the basics and eventually attain full WordPress honors if you want to go that far.
You can teach yourself by reading blog posts and watching video tutorials or try one of the online WordPress courses. If you’re willing to invest a little money in your future success
WORDPRESS CORE
For beginers, “WordPress core” refers to the WordPress core files. You should be familiar with the main core files and what can you do with each of them. You should also know which you can edit safely and which ones you should never touch.
Another part of WordPress mastery is to understand the built-in and custom post types and their associated template files.
When you fully understand the concept of custom post types, you can create your own, and the content in your websites will really start to stand out. You can create a custom post type for nearly any types of content you want to display on your site.
For example, you could have a special page listing bikes for sale, which links to each individual bikes, which is authored as a custom post in the back end. You could have a part of your site for recipes, or events, or movie reviews, all with their own unique features.
There are custom post type plugins that can help you to create custom post types, and when your skills will be improved enough, you can learn how to code them on your own.
The Beaver Builder plugin works with custom post types, so not only you can have custom posts describing bikes, you can also have beautiful layouts of the information. Or, you can build Beaver Themer layouts for the pages that describe the bikes and bikes categories.
WORDPRESS THEMES
Themes control layouts and style should be in parts of the page outside the content area, such as headers and footers. Many themes also offer a very limited choice of page templates and already have some settings for default styles. Because the use of a theme is mandatory in WordPress, it's good to stay updated with what are the most popular free and premium WordPress themes and what makes eachone of them unique. You should also make sure that the theme of your own site stays updated with WordPress core updates.
It’s also very important to understand the concept of the WordPress theme framework and the difference between parent and child themes.
Once you start to know the more technical aspects of themes, you’ll be able to make a better decision about whether you prefer a bare bones theme that you can further customize or one that can builds in a multitude of options. As your skills will improve further, you’ll be able to review themes for their coding quality and performance.
Even if you’re interested in using the Beaver Themer add-on plugin to design areas of the page normally controlled by the theme, if you understand what a theme can do then you’ll have a better understanding of how and where to override it with a Themer layout.
WORDPRESS PLUGINS
Whereas themes control layouts and styles, WordPress plugins control functionality, and there’s a plugin for almost every type of functionality: from page builders to specific content design elements (sliders, galleries, forms) to security, performance, backup, and analytics tools. It's important to be familiar with staples such as Yoast SEO, Jetpack, and WooCommerce.
Many free plugins are there to choose, and even more premium plugins with advanced functionality are also there. With many plugins, particularly those which can help with content organization and design, you’ll notice that they are incorporate custom post types.
For example, the WooCommerce plugin installs a Products menu item into the WordPress admin panel, and from there you can click the Product button to create a custom post for each individual product.
As you start to learn code, if you creates multiple sites and will find yourself adding the same custom code to the functions.php file for most of your sites to create the same custom functionality, it’s not hard to turn that into your own custom plugin.
Step 3: Have a Strong Command on the Customizer and Other WordPress SettingsAnyone can pick up WordPress and use templates, themes, demos, and other prebuilt elements to create websites. However, WordPress experts are also capable of taking thier websites to the next level through advanced customization.
There are many ways to go for creating a custom WordPress site, including the use of plugins or custom code. It's important to start with a thorough knowledge of WordPress' native customization capabilities.
So, before you will call yourself a WordPress expert, you'll need to understand how to use the Customizer and WordPress' primary settings.
Although the Customizer settings for each theme are different, you have to quickly adjust the settings of the theme while you’re working to create a unique-looking site that meets end users' needs.
Here’s an example of the Customizer settings of the Twenty Seventeen theme.
You should also be able to use standard WordPress settings to add certain structures and features to a site. Just to name a few basics, you should know how to:
- Create a static home page.
- Manage memberships and comments.
- Hide a site from search engines.
- Set a default permalink structure.
Step 4: You Should Learn About the Technical Underpinnings of WordPressA key part of knowing WordPress and its themes and plugins deeply is know how they were created, which means learning little about how to code. Now we're not saying you need to have advanced expertise in multiple coding languages in order to be a WordPress expert.
On the contrary, You can be an expert on WordPress without being able to do much more than a little tinkering.
By design, WordPress doesn't require coding knowledge, but knowing the basics of the languages that make up the foundation of the WordPress platform will help you with troubleshooting, fielding questions from other users, and for advanced customization.
This means knowing the basics of how to use HTML, CSS, PHP, and JavaScript in WordPress.
Step 5: Learn about the Data base and Database MaintenanceOne of the most intresting features of WordPress is that it’s a content management system (CMS) with a database, which means that pages are dynamically converted to HTML and served with content from the database.
It is very useful to learn how data related to posts and custom posts is stored in the database, so you can troubleshoot it if you will get yourself into any issue. Themes and plugins store their data in the database with their own unique prefixes, and it’s helpful to recognize that too, for troubleshooting.
One of the many benefits of this structure is that you can create custom fields in the database, which you can integrate with standard posts and custom post types.
Going back to the example of a custom post type for bikes, when authors are filling out the post with bike details, you could include custom fields for all the information that you want to show with every bike, such as year, model number, condition, and so on, which you can then display in a uniform way on the page.
Beaver Themer can connect to WordPress custom fields, Advanced Custom Fields, and Pods custom fields so you can easily include custom fields into your Beaver Builder layouts.
Here’s a screenshot showing one event from a custom post type called Events. The single event pages use a Beaver Themer Singular layout. The date, time, and the entire Special Notes sidebar contain various custom fields so that all of the event pages have similar information in a standardized location.
In this example, the CPT and the custom fields were all created by the Pods plugin, and the custom field connections were made available through the Pods integration with Beaver Builder.
Basically you won’t interact directly with the database unless you’re troubleshooting, but there are a few basic maintenance tasks WordPress experts should handle. For example, you should know the how to use phpMyAdmin and the database in manually installing WordPress:
You should also know how to maintain basic database to optimize site performance, or at least you should know how the database can affect execution so you can use a plugin to manage this piece of work.
Step 6: Be Familiar With WordPress' Hosting OptionsHosting is a important part of what is going on behind the scenes to keep a site running. You should know about the following aspects of hosting:
- How web hosting works and what to look for in a hosting provider
- What different types of hosting are available
- Which companies are the most popular
- What managed WordPress hosting entails
Step 7: Interact with the WordPress Community and Give Back
One of the many things that makes WordPress different from other platforms is that it’s open-source, meaning the source code is visible to anyone. Due to this, many WordPress experts have the chance to directly contribute in building the platform.
The next step to be an expert is to join the efforts to improve and expand the platform. If you happen to have extensive coding knowledge and experience, this can help for contributing to WordPress core development.
However, as we said earlier, you don't have to be a coding expert to be a WordPress expert. Once you’ve mastered the basics, you can innovate by your thoughts and ideas in various ways.
Make WordPress Core is probably the best place to get start. There you add comments to posts, report bugs, or even work on addressing support tickets:
If this doesn't feel like your strong suit, there are plenty of other options. You can also do:
- Join the Theme Review Team.
- Become part of the Plugin Review Team.
- Write WordPress documentation.
- Translate WordPress into languages other than English.
- Help design the WordPress User Interface.
- Keep WordPress accessible.
- Create WordPress Training lesson plans.
Another responsibility that comes with being a WordPress expert is share your knowledge with begginer users. The Support Forums are full of people looking for help with specific problem, and they rely on generous experts to post replies to help them out:
Additionally, creating blog posts, video tutorials, or even a podcast on WordPress-related topics can help to support new users. Just think how much you can learn from WordPress-related blogs and tutorials contributed by volunteers.
They said that, you don't necessarily have to create your own blog or an entire YouTube channel to share your knowledge. You can always become a contributor at a larger WordPress blog or even write guest posts.
If writing and video editing aren't really cup of tea for you, maybe you'd rather submit an application to contact at a WordCamp or a WordPress meetup. They have many opportunities to use your knowledge and to share your expertise if you know where to look.
ConclusionA basic understanding WordPress and how it works is all you really need to make things run smoothly on your site. However, if you want to use more advanced features and to reduce your need for outside help, you'll need to advance your skills and to become a WordPress expert. The time you spend in learning will be paid back in time and frustration you save when you solve a problem or implement some advanced features on your site.
In this post, we explored seven steps you can take to start becoming a WordPress expert:
- Use your current knowledge and note any gaps.
- Ensure that you understand how WordPress' key components work together.
- Have a strong command of the Customizer and other WordPress settings.
- Learn about the technical underpinnings of WordPress.
- Learn about the database and database maintenance.
- Become familiar with WordPress hosting options.
- Interact with the WordPress community and give back
Its entry-level development courses should teach you enough to accomplish basic tasks. You can also learn from reading blog posts, although this brings with it a degree of trial and error.
The WordPress Codex is also an excellent resource where you can start reading up on the basics and eventually attain full WordPress honors if you want to go that far.
You can teach yourself by reading blog posts and watching video tutorials or try one of the online WordPress courses. If you’re willing to invest a little money in your future success
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